Washington: The NATO community must do more to prevent Taliban militants from using the growing opium trade to fund their insurgency in Afghanistan, the alliance's top military commander has said.
US Gen James Jones said on Thursday that the military forces can take on a larger role in ferreting out information about the drug connection and locating opium production areas, but US and NATO troops will not be used to eradicate crops.
The opium problem "certainly cries out for more international focus," said Jones, adding, "the international community understands that we have to have more success in the narcotics field, and we have to do that in the fairly near future."
Speaking to Pentagon reporters, Jones said that NATO forces can now have "at least a supporting role in helping the authorities with intelligence and using our technologies to show them where the production, the increase, is to make sure that the roads are in fact used for peaceful purposes as opposed to transporting illicit goods."
But he said the military is only a small part of what must be a holistic solution. The greater challenges, he said, are to reform the police, improve the training and equipping of the Afghan forces, and encourage economic and political reforms that would give Afghans ways other than the drug trade to stabilize their economy.
Jones acknowledged that the record increase in opium cultivation this year in Afghanistan can fuel the insurgency.
Recent projections show a 40 per cent increase in the opium poppy crop over last year's totals - with officials projecting that about 370,650 acres of poppy were cultivated this season.
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